Elastic migration: The case of Dutch short-distance transmigrants in Belgian and German borderlands

Abstract

Along the Dutch-Belgian and Dutch-German border a new and interesting kind of transmigration is developing, that is migration over only a few kilometres across the border. The main characteristic of these Dutch short-distance transmigrants is that they have their houses in Belgium/ Germany, but their social and working life still takes place in the Netherlands. Their transmigration is hence very elastic. This elasticity invokes the interesting question: what kind of (trans)national identity these Dutch are displaying and to what extent the Dutch desire to be and/ or are socially provoked to be integrated in the neighbouring Belgian/ German society. These cross-border spaces in which the short-distance migrants have their residences could very well be interesting micro-scale laboratories of the future of the nation-state in the European Union. © 2006 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.